Are my BPs healthy weights?

That is why we have all the materials to do our own fecal exams at home. When we get a fresh fecal anytime we take the chance to learn and inspect. Seeing that some of our don't eat anything we don't produce year round we don't do fecals on all of them annually. But we do try to get fecals on all of our snakes as often as possible.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Never heard of such a thing - but I know that Joanna (frankykeno) rescued a 2 year old female who was very small from not being fed well - and now she's breeding this year - she rebounded quite well, once she was vet checked and put on a proper diet.

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I can't see how a few years of underfeeding would keep them small. Wouldn't it be just plain slowing down their growing, not stopping it for good.

We adopted two girls this past year. Both around 2-3 years of age and barely 500 grams. They had a tell tale triangular underweight look to them, thin, really soft, loose skin, stuck shed and eye caps. They were being fed a small mouse once a week.

Since we've been feeding them an appropriately sized meal weekly (baby rat no bigger around then their widest point), they have both put on a couple of hundred grams and finally look like normal young ball pythons. We haven't stuffed them or power-fed, and they defecate in small amounts. As far as we can figure, they are using just about all the food for growth.

They are a rounded well developed shape, firm to the touch, stronger and actually have gotten developed more color, getting darker.

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Originally Posted by Kaorte

http://i41.tinypic.com/20h348g.jpg

As for locating a vet, have you asked if any of them are willing to do a fecal float for a reptile?

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Thats the male, but I think I know what you mean...

I live pretty far away from denver, so I've just called some local places. None of them do. I'm going to start looking up some vets in Denver soon.

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Originally Posted by Flicker

Thats the male, but I think I know what you mean...

I live pretty far away from denver, so I've just called some local places. None of them do. I'm going to start looking up some vets in Denver soon.

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http://www.herpvetconnection.com/

http://www.anapsid.org/vets/#vetlist

http://www.arav.org/usmembers.htm

I hope this helps

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Never heard of such a thing - but I know that Joanna (frankykeno) rescued a 2 year old female who was very small from not being fed well - and now she's breeding this year - she rebounded quite well, once she was vet checked and put on a proper diet.

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I haven't either Robin but anyone that would purposefully withhold food from any animal be that a snake or a dog or whatever, to stunt it's growth unnaturally is as far as I'm concerned guilty of animal abuse. :mad:

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Originally Posted by Flicker

Thanks for all the help and feedback everyone is giving me! You guys are being so helpful!

I havn't been feeding them 10% of their weight... I'll start that right away. I had NEVER heard that rule before.

Also, I called around a few vets and none of them specialized in reptiles...

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Did you ask them if they can do a fecal float on your snake's poop? Far as I know a fecal is a fecal and isn't even done by the vet but rather by one of the technicians. If they give you a result and do not feel they can treat the snake then you can ask for a referral to a herp experienced vet.

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

I can't see how a few years of underfeeding would keep them small. Wouldn't it be just plain slowing down their growing, not stopping it for good.

We adopted two girls this past year. Both around 2-3 years of age and barely 500 grams. They had a tell tale triangular underweight look to them, thin, really soft, loose skin, stuck shed and eye caps. They were being fed a small mouse once a week.

Since we've been feeding them an appropriately sized meal weekly (baby rat no bigger around then their widest point), they have both put on a couple of hundred grams and finally look like normal young ball pythons. We haven't stuffed them or power-fed, and they defecate in small amounts. As far as we can figure, they are using just about all the food for growth.

They are a rounded well developed shape, firm to the touch, stronger and actually have gotten developed more color, getting darker.

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I've seen it go both ways Connie. The snake Robin is referring to was just under 2 years of age and approximately 1 to 2 inches longer than a normal six month old female ball python. She weighed in at almost the exact weight range of a 6 month old snake. I double, then triple checked with her previous owners but they remembered exactly when they got her. They had underfed her, her entire life based on the very bad advice of a pet store clerk.

As Robin said, Kyna was put on a proper diet and very, very quickly grew in both weight and length and produced her first clutch of 7 hatchlings for us last year.

We have other snakes that came in as adults that were of appropriate length but severly underweight. I wonder if it's something to do with age perhaps. If the snake can achieve adulthood before it's left neglected and underfed maybe they do get big but skinny. However, if they are underfed from hatching then it makes sense that very little of what they do get would go into much growth and would just be used to sustain what pitiful existance they manage to have. Just a theory though.

I'll see if I can dig up the old picture of Kyna I have (she was called Punkin by her previous owners).

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

http://www.herpvetconnection.com/

http://www.anapsid.org/vets/#vetlist

http://www.arav.org/usmembers.htm

I hope this helps

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found one, called, and they do floats! Thank you!

I need to get them in separate tubs before I can get a float done, though--they live together right now.

Connie, here's the picture of Kyna that I got from her owners before I took her in. It's not a great shot but you can see there is retained shed, she's far smaller than I would have expected her to be and if you look closely her skin is loose under her neck (where it presses into his hand). All and all she was a case of lifelong mismanagement by her owners who as I said followed very poor advice from their local pet store.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...cfrompre-1.jpg

Unfortunately sometime after we got her I had a complete failure on my harddrive and the original records of her weight are lost but compared side by side with Rionnach, our 6 to 9 month old ball python, Kyna was almost the same size but obviously in poor condition.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Connie, here's the picture of Kyna that I got from her owners before I took her in. It's not a great shot but you can see there is retained shed, she's far smaller than I would have expected her to be and if you look closely her skin is loose under her neck (where it presses into his hand). All and all she was a case of lifelong mismanagement by her owners who as I said followed very poor advice from their local pet store.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...cfrompre-1.jpg

Unfortunately sometime after we got her I had a complete failure on my harddrive and the original records of her weight are lost but compared side by side with Rionnach, our 6 to 9 month old ball python, Kyna was almost the same size but obviously in poor condition.

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I really didnt think they would stay THAT small, that's pretty incredible. She really is about the size of a 6 months old. I guess I more meant that I couldn't imagine the snake only staying that size, but it sounds like from your descriptions that she has grown quite larger since she's been with you.

From the post by Malposo, I got from it that the BP would stay that size there if underfed for a couple of years and not grow any bigger even if fed regular sized meals.

If I start feeding them better amounts now, will they be okay? I mean, they're not going to go "bonsai" or have breeding complication later in life, right? This is worrying me...

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

I really didnt think they would stay THAT small, that's pretty incredible. She really is about the size of a 6 months old. I guess I more meant that I couldn't imagine the snake only staying that size, but it sounds like from your descriptions that she has grown quite larger since she's been with you.

From the post by Malposo, I got from it that the BP would stay that size there if underfed for a couple of years and not grow any bigger even if fed regular sized meals.

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Well pictures say her story. This is Kyna last year on her nice 7 egg clutch. A bit thin post-lay as most of them are but she bounced right back to her pre-breeding season healthy weight which is usually around the 1,800 gram mark. :)

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ch06-08-08.jpg

I doubt you could permanently stunt a snake by poor feeding but I hope I never find out if that's the truth. Awful thing to contemplate someone doing on purpose isn't it. We did worry over Kyna even as she grew because she was so obviously undersized at almost 2 years of age. We weren't sure if there would be long lasting physical effects for her but she simply glows with good health now. She's also one of our most outgoing ball pythons. We often say she acts more like our boas than a ball python. :)